What to do if your baby's throat is red and swollen

Every child will encounter some health problems in the process of growing up, especially when the child is relatively young and is in a period of rapid growth and development. During this period, the body's resistance is relatively low, and they will always suffer from some diseases. Among them, baby's throat redness and swelling is the most common disease. If not treated in time, it will cause a lot of pain to the child and will seriously affect the child's physical health. Let's learn about what to do if the baby's throat is red and swollen.

What to do if your baby's throat is red and swollen

Traditional Chinese medicine believes that sore throat is mostly caused by factors such as lung and stomach fire or exogenous wind-heat.

Sore throat caused by lung and stomach fire rushing up is mostly caused by eating a lot of spicy food. In addition to sore throat, children often also have symptoms such as high fever, thirst, headache, thick yellow phlegm, dry stool, yellow urine, red tongue, and thick yellow tongue coating.

When a child has a fever and a sore throat, parents should first identify the nature of the sore throat to see whether it is caused simply by excessive internal heat or if the child also has cold in the body. The two conditions differ greatly in how they are treated.

How to distinguish?

A simple method is to touch the child's hands and feet. If the child's hands and feet are hot, it means that the child has internal heat; if the child's hands and feet are cold, it often means that the child has internal heat. Tonsillitis is caused by heavy cold and dampness and lack of blood in the child's body. This type of child is most likely to have recurrent tonsillitis, and most of them snore while sleeping.

Fever and sore throat caused by excessive internal heat

1. The treatment for fever and sore throat caused by excessive internal heat is the same as that for fever and sore throat caused by lung and stomach fire rushing up.

(1) Let your child drink more water. You can add a little salt to the water and let your child drink light salt water.

(2) Let your children eat more cold fruits, such as watermelon, banana, pear, kiwi, etc. Younger children can drink the juice squeezed from these fruits.

(3) Children over 3 years old can also use back scraping therapy at the same time. Apply sesame oil along both sides of the child's spine, from the neck to the waist, where the Foot-Taiyang Bladder Meridian passes. Then use a scraping board (available in stores; if you don't have a scraping board, use a round, non-edge-filled porcelain spoon) to gently scrape from top to bottom. When the child has internal heat, you will soon see the scraped area turn red. When scraping your child, do not use heavy techniques. Just gently scrape along both sides of the spine a dozen times each. After scraping, let the child drink more warm water, which will quickly reduce the fever and relieve the sore throat.

(4) If parents do not know how to do scraping or their children are too young to do it, massage can be used to reduce fever.

First rub the child's back, mainly the cervical vertebrae and between the shoulder blades, which can affect the child's chest and lungs. You don't need to rub it too many times, just rub it back and forth dozens of times until your skin becomes warm.

Then rub the child's arms, mainly the inside and outside sides from the thumbs upwards. The hand Taiyin lung meridian runs on the inner side of the thumb, connecting the lung and throat; the hand Yangming large intestine meridian runs from the index finger through the Hegu point upward on the outer side of the thumb, not only connecting the large intestine but also the lung and throat. Rub these two meridians on the child's arm dozens of times until they are warm, which is effective in treating sore throat. Then rub the thenar of the child's hand and press the Hegu point on the hand. These are the main acupoints for treating sore throat.

Finally, rub the Stomach Meridian of Foot-Yangming on the child's calf, which is the meridian that runs downward along the Zusanli point. Rub it back and forth dozens of times until it is warm. This will draw the heat downward.

If parents can insist on rubbing off the entire set and let their children drink more warm water or light warm salt water, the child's fever and sore throat will soon be relieved.

The body is affected by wind and cold, which may cause fever and sore throat.

2. If a child has high internal heat and a lot of cold in the body or has caught a cold, he or she may also have symptoms of fever and sore throat. And it usually manifests as alternating hot and cold, cold hands and feet, white tongue coating, light and clear urine. After becoming ill, the effects of taking medicine and infusion are not obvious. The fever is low or normal during the day, and the symptoms worsen in the afternoon and evening, repeating for several days, and are often accompanied by coughing and runny nose. In this situation, parents should:

(1) Use 3 slices of ginger, 3 1-inch long green onions, and half a spoon of brown sugar, add water and boil for 10 minutes. Then give it to your child to drink, 3 times a day. Parents should pay attention. Once they observe that their child’s tongue coating is no longer white, or the color of urine has become darker, they can stop giving the treatment. Children under two years old are afraid of spicy food. Parents can add two slices of ginger, two pieces of green onion, and a few drops of vinegar to the porridge cooked for their children. After cooking, remove the ginger and green onion when giving it to the children. This ginger and scallion porridge is very effective in dispelling cold, inducing sweating and reducing fever. It can be fed to children 2 to 3 times a day. After the child's fever subsides, stop adding green onions. Wait until the white coating has obviously disappeared, and even stop adding ginger.

(2) After drinking the ginger, scallion and brown sugar water, parents can let their children soak their feet in hotter water for 20 to 30 minutes, rub the soles of the feet 50 times each, pinch each of the 10 toes 20 to 30 times each, and finally massage the tonsil reflex area at the base of the big toe. As long as the child has a sore throat, he or she will definitely feel pain when pressing this area. After finding the pain point, press on the painful area for 5 to 10 minutes. Massage both feet in this way, 2 to 3 times a day, and the child's sore throat will be relieved.

(3) During the entire treatment process, parents should give their children plenty of warm water, one cup every hour, to encourage their children to urinate more often, which will significantly relieve sore throats.

(4) Make sure to keep up with your diet. Children get sick because of their weak and cold bodies, so their nutrition must be strengthened. Children over two years old can eat Guyuan Paste 1 to 2 times a day, half a spoonful each time. Parents should also give their children more well-cooked meat broth or chicken broth, and eat the meat together. Do not eat fish, shrimp, yam or pepper when your throat is swollen and sore.

(5) Children who sleep with their arms outside at night, often go barefoot and do not like to wear shoes, like to sit directly on the ground, and eat cold fruits all year round, if they also like to eat fish, are more likely to suffer from various chronic diseases of the head and face, such as chronic rhinitis, chronic tonsillitis, otitis media, etc. If parents want to completely cure their children's chronic tonsillitis, in addition to strengthening nutrition, they should try to feed their children more foods with neutral or warm properties in their daily diet. They can eat cool foods in summer, but foods that are extremely cold should not be eaten all year round. At the same time, try to eat less fish and shrimp. The most important thing is to prevent children from catching cold.

In order not to affect the baby's growth and development, any physical problems must be treated in time. The above is an introduction to what to do if the baby's throat is red and swollen. Especially when the child is in the growth and development period and the disease occurs, it must be treated in time, especially the child can adjust the diet more often.